Liars
by Pazel
Summary: House gets a hard case when an eleven year old stops breathing for no apparent reason. But it's the parents that's the hard part. R
1. Suspicion

Mr. Gregory House, a man with an attitude as bad as his limp, was sitting in his office, surrounded by glass walls. He had just gotten a new case, something about some kid who would stop breathing for no apparent reason at any given time.

He frowned. The girl didn't have asthma or any of the other several types of respiratory problems his brain could conjure up, and she was perfectly healthy otherwise. There were a few bruises on her body, which were either from rough pre-teenage sex or domestic abuse.

After meeting the girl, he figured the latter. She was very tense and very shy. She didn't like to look people in the eye and felt horribly uncomfortable in the paper gown she was forced to wear. Her parents were no help, screaming at her to "look at the doctor when he's speaking" or "answer that question" and things like that. Not normal, loving parent behavior when their daughter is in the hospital. On another note, the mother didn't cry. He had never seen a mother not cry when her child is in the hospital.

The blue eyed man twisted his black and flame cane in his hand, giving them something to do as he thought. If she _was_ being abused, he would have to do something about it. Sure, he had been awakened to the harsh reality that he wanted everyone to suffer with him, but she was kid, for God's sake! If her parents were drunken assholes, he'd have to intervene. He was a doctor, not a cop, but to let such a case go would be inhumane.

Sure, House had been accused of being such, but he would never leave his patient out in the cold.

He stood and walked to the room of the young girl. Her name was Francine, which was the first step to seeing that her parents hated her. Who names their  
daughter Francine anymore?

He limped inside. Her parents' heads snapped up with surprise. Francine was crying, but attempted to wipe the tears away before he could see them. House raised an eyebrow and walked closer to the bed.

"Hi," he yelled.

"H-hello," the mother stuttered.

"Mrs. Folley," House began in the same annoyingly loud voice, "how are you today?"

"Fine." She rubbed her eyes as if she were wiping away a tear. House knew she hadn't been crying.

House turned his head to Francine. "And you?" His voice was less loud as he spoke to the young girl.

She stared down at her blanket and whispered, "fine."

House moved his tongue around inside his mouth as he thought of what to say next. "Alright. That's all I wanted to know. " He tuned to leave but quickly tuned back to to Mr. and Mrs. Folley. "You're daughter hasn't been cooperating. If you don't make her cooperate, we'll have to hold off the tests. That will cost more." He walked out and turned the corner and stopped. He pressed his back against the wall and listened.

"You little shit!" followed his exit and Francine's father scolded her in a low voice. "You better do as those doctors say, do you hear me? We're kind enough to pay for everything, so don't you dare make it cost more for us!"

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" The apology came in short gasps and sobs and then stopped altogether as her breathing stopped.

House rushed in behind a few nurses who began putting a tube down her throat, attempting to open it. Her throat was too tightly closed to get the tube through.

Something beeped behind House and Francine began seizing.

"Leave," House commanded.

A nurse looked up, her face bewildered.

"Not you," House told her, his voice annoyed. "Do your job." He turned to the girl's parents. "You. Leave."

"We can't leave!" her father shouted.

"You're causing her panic attacks, so leave. If you don't I'll call security."

Her mother and father exchanged glances and reluctantly left the room. A few seconds later, Francine's throat opened enough for the nurses to get the tube through.

--

A few minutes passed and the girl was breathing evenly, although she was out cold. When they were sure everything was fine, the nurses left, leaving House to watch her. They had taken the tube out of her throat but replaced it with a ventilator for fear her breathing would stop.

House rubbed his temples. He had no idea what to do.

Francine's eyes fluttered open. When she remembered where she was, they widened with fear and began searching the room frantically.

House sat next to the bed. "Are you feeling better?"

Francine turned to him, crying slightly. She said nothing, but she didn't have to, because House had a question for her.

Before he could ask, Cuddy walked in with Francine's parents behind her.

"Doctor House! Did you threaten to call _security_ on them?" she asked.

"Did they say I did?" House retorted.

"Yes!" Cuddy replied.

"Then it must have happened, huh?"

"House, why would you do that?"

He didn't answer while he contemplated whether to tell Cuddy that he suspected abuse. "She was having a panic attack. Parents usually are the cause of those things. I just wanted to get her breathing again so she wouldn't, you know, die." His tone was sarcastic as it usually was. However, thins time he was just trying to keep his suspicion hidden from the Folleys. They couldn't know just yet what he had deduced.

Then, House turned to the parents. "You never told us she seized, too."

Her parents looked at each other and Francine's father said, "we didn't th-"

"You lied," House accused.

"House! My office. _Now!_" Cuddy demanded through clenched teeth.

House stood up, but he felt like he had caught his jacket on something. He turned to see Francine holding him back, her eyes wide with fear.

House turned to Cuddy. "No."


	2. Fear

"_No?_ What do you _mean_ 'no'?" Cuddy argued.

House looked down at Francine then back up at Cuddy. His voice remained turned serious as he asked, "why don't you ask her?"

All eyes turned to the girl who closed her own eyes tightly. She whimpered but didn't talk. House didn't coax her to speak. He didn't move. He stood there, knowing that she would speak soon.

Francine let go of his jacket and House's face fell.

"She wants you to go now," Francine's mother muttered angrily.

"Fine," House retorted. He looked down at Francine, as if to talk only to her. "I'll be in my office."

--

Foreman stood in front of House, his arms crossed and a frown adorning his dark face.

"So, you think her parents are... abusing her?" His tone was exactly as House knew it would be- unbelieving and confused.

"Yeah," House answered, his voice annoyingly loud again. He stood up from his chair and limped over to the white board. He wrote down the words "panic attack" and "seizures".

"Those are happening because she's scared? Is that what you think?" Kutner asked, just as confused as Foreman.

House nodded. "Exactly. I think that she's so afraid of her parents, it's killing her. Ever heard of being scared to death?"

Thirteen was next to speak, "Well, yeah, but-"

House cut her off. "No 'but's." He looked at the ground as he gathered his thoughts. "There are no buts. If she has a bad enough panic attack, her heart could..." He let the sentence linger like a school teacher, waiting for a hand to be raised.

"Stop?" Taub answered.

"Right! As a reward for your right answer, you get to question the parents." House limped back to his chair where his Nintendo DS was waiting.

"Ask them what?" Taub asked.

House made a face. "I don't know. It's your job."

--

Taub walked into the Folley girl's room. She was alone, which seemed strange. Then he looked at the clock to see it was six pm.

"They go to get dinner?" he asked.

"Yes." The ventilator which had been helping her breathe earlier was out, allowing her to speak.

"Well, I came here to talk to your parents. Since they're not here, how about I talk to you?" Taub sat down on the chair near the bed.

Francine shrugged. "I guess."

"Do you want to tell us... anything?" He didn't want to say something like, _want to tell us if you've been abused?_ but he did want to get something out of her.

Francine turned her head away. "Where's that other doctor?"

Taub's eyes widened. "You mean Doctor House?"

The young girl nodded as she turned to face him. "He knows. I want to talk to him."

"Wait a minute. He... knows?"

At that moment, the two were interrupted by Francine's parents.

"Oh. Doctor. W-what are you two talking about?" her mother asked.

"Yes. We'd like to be notified whenever you talk to our daughter," her father added quickly.

Taub pinched the bridge of his nose and cursed inwardly. "Excuse me, Mr. Folley, but this is a _hospital_, not a _police office_. You don't need to have a lawyer present. We _are_ allowed to talk to your daughter alone."

"I don't like that," her father shouted.

"Well, then," a voice from behind the door said, "you'll just have to go to another hospital."

Everyone turned to see House who was- very casually- downing what looked like a handful of pills.

"Excuse me?" Mr. Folley began.

House pushed his way through into the room. He turned to the parents and said, "but I'll be forced to do something about those bruises on your daughter."

Taub saw Francine curl into a ball beneath the blankets.

"What are you _talking_ about?" Mrs. Folley asked. She seemed bewildered and nervous.

"You're shaking. It's a sign of nervousness. That's how people in a lie detector test get busted," House muttered.

"Are you accusing us of abusing our _daughter_?" the girl's father asked loudly.

House turned to Francine, who made a small whimpering noise. She looked up at him with big eyes as she said, "he hurts Mom, too."

House turned back to the parents. Mrs. Folley was crying in Taub's arms.

The father was standing with his hands up by his shoulders defensively. "Look, I didn't do anything! I don't know where those bruises came from, I swear!"

House stared the man down with his bright blue eyes. "I'm calling security."

"You can't call security on me!" he yelled. He turned to his wife, who was hiding her face in Taub's shoulder. "Honey! Honey, _please!_ Tell him! Tell him I don't do these things!"

Mrs. Folley raised her head to look at her husband.

"Baby, I _love_ you," he whispered.

Mrs. Folley's eyes grew wide with pity. "He... he doesn't get violent. He's never hurt us."

"Mommy?" Francine called, her voice small and scared.

"That's right, sweety," her husband encouraged, "I don't. Do I, Francine?" His eyes were hard and frightening, even to Doctor House.

House moved, blocking Francine's view of her father. Then he turned to her mother, who was stifling her sobs. "You'll kill your daughter."

"He. Doesn't. Hurt. Us," she insisted.

Francine let out a loud cry and began seizing, her throat too tight to take in or let out air.

House turned back to his patient the quickly to her mother. "Told you," he gloated with an unhappy tone as the nurses rushed in.

Francine's parents were shooed out of the room. Her father grabbed his wife out of Taub's arms. She was still shaking nervously as she left. Mr. Folley looked back at House with a triumphant smile. They caught each other's eye and the competition had officially begun.


	3. Family

"He abuses her," House declared as he looked at the group of people before him. The word "ABUSE" was written on the white board in large letters and circled.

Cuddy stood in the doorway, proving to the doctors around House that he wasn't jumping to some crazy conclusion, which he was known to do every once in a while.

"What are we going to do?" Thirteen asked, looking at House, then at Cuddy.

House looked down and sighed. He looked straight into Thirteen's eyes. "I don't know."

"We can't just let her allow him to abuse them!" Cuddy argued.

"I didn't say we were," House retorted, obnoxiously loud again.

"Then what... did you say?" Kutner asked.

House limped to the other side of the white board. "I'm saying that I don't know."

Everyone looked at each other. Was the great Gregory House finally at a loss?

"There might be something else wrong with her," Kutner offered. "A lot of kids are abused, but she might be sick, too, if she's like this."

House shook his head. "No, she's just abused. She's terrified. So terrified, that her brain is shutting itself off."

"We should get the police involved," Thirteen suggested, although her voice was hinting to it being more of a demand.

"I agree," Cuddy chimed in.

House looked around the room helplessly. Although he desperately wanted to save Francine, he didn't see the police as being the best thing. What if she gets worse after they take him into custody? What if her mom blames her?

"That could make her worse," House stated quietly, as if only to himself. "But that might be the only way to save her."

--

The following day, Cuddy was busy talking to a bunch of police officers when House limped in to the hospital.

"There you are! Where have you been?" she demanded.

"Sleeping," he answered simply, walking right past the group and into the room of his patient.

Cuddy turned back to the officers. "He's a genius doctor, really."

--

Francine bit her lower lip nervously. "Is Daddy coming back?"

"I don't know."

"Is he in jail?"

"Not yet."

"Why?"

"We can't prove he hurts you. Only _your _word can prove it. Especially since your mom denies it."

A tear fell down the young girl's cheek. "Why would she lie like that?"

House sighed. He looked straight at his patient and said, "it's not her fault. She's afraid."

"I'm getting hurt!"

House shook his head then looked at the wall to the right of him. He didn't know what to say.

Cuddy turned away from where she was standing in the doorway and walked away, unable to watch any longer. As she began walking, Mrs. Folley stormed past her and into Francine's room. Cuddy immediately turned around to see what would unfold. She stood behind the glass walls, hidden by the blinds that circled the room. She pressed her forehead to the cool material and listened.

"What did you _do?" _The woman yelled, turning House around violently to face her.

"I called the police on your abusive husband." Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Francine curl up under the blankets.

The woman turned to her daughter. "And _you! _What did you do? You forced him to call the cops, you little bitch!"

Francine shook her head. "Mommy, I-"

"You've ruined this family!" Mrs. Folley screamed angrily.

House had officially lost his patience. "That's enough!" he screamed, causing even the people walking by outside of the room to look at him. "She's your daughter, for God's sake! She was being abused! She was on the verge of death! If she died, your family would have been ruined then, wouldn't it?"

"You would have saved her! Then you would have saved our family!"

"No one could save your family!"

Mrs. Folley grew quiet as she took in the harsh reality of his words.

House lowered his voice and said gently, "I'm not God. Your daughter was dying. There would be nothing I could do to save her if he stayed around."


	4. Trial

There was a trial for the girl, and House sat on the witness stand.

Court was a very dangerous place for the pill-popping doctor, but being on the witness stand was even more dangerous for the defense attorney. With his credibility, there was no way the jury _wouldn't _convict Mr. Folley.

Mr. Folley's attorney, whose name House hadn't cared to memorize- she had a large rack, and that's all that really mattered- watched him carefully. In his _expert_ opinion, she was a horrible lawyer. She didn't ask the right questions, and she wore a shirt to hide good her body.

House undressed her with his eyes while keeping a straight face, something he had learned to do with Cameron.

"...Well?" the attorney asked.

House knew the question she had asked. He had the ability to pay no attention but hear words anyway. She had said _Did you run tests on the girl?_

"Of course I did; I'm her doctor," he answered, watching her chest and not her eyes.

"And, in these... tests... you could see that she was abused?"

"There were bruises."

"Little girls get bruises."

"Not hand print shaped bruises." His voice was very calm, as to not scare the jurors. He twisted his cane in one hand and the other rested on his lap.

"I slap? She's a child. Sometimes you need to discipline your childr-"

"Not with violence," House interrupted. "You don't hit your child. _Especially _when she's having panic attacks and seizures."

"She could have been hit somewhere else. By a friend, maybe."

"No eleven year old girl has friends with hands that big."

"Damn it!" Mr. Folley stood up, knocking his chair backwards. He stared at his lawyer and screamed, "whose side are you on?"

The judge banged the gavel. "That's _enough_, Mr. Folley," she yelled. "If that happens again, I'll have you taken out of here!"

Mr. Folley picked up his chair and sat down. He muttered a little, but kept quiet for the most part.

The attorney looked back at me. "Did Francine say she was being abused?"

House sighed. "Not in so many words."

"Oh, so you're just making the assumption?"

"No, I-"

"You just said she never admitted to it, so you're _obviously _going on some whim, aren't you? How many Vicodin have you taken today?"

"Objection!" Francine's lawyer yelled. "Relevance?"

Francine's attorney's name was Linda. She had a small chest.

"I'll allow it," the judge answered.

"I had as many as I had to to stop the pain in my leg. But that has nothing to do with the little girl!" Making her sound as innocent as possible is what would win the case, House knew. 'Little girl' was just the thing to say to woo the jury. "And I wasn't done with my last statement. She admits that she's being hurt. How far do you want a kid to go? She can't even see her father without having an attack!"

House stood and walked off the witness stand.

"You're not done here!" the judge called angrily.

House looked back at her. "Yes, I am."

--

"They need you to appear tomorrow," House told Francine. "I'll come, if you want me to."

She was still in the hospital because her father still had rights to see her, and so she was still having attacks.

"Okay," she answered in a weak voice.

House nodded and left the room.

--

In the same court as last week, House sat in the back rows of the seats. He looked at it for the first time. I was large and ornate, and there were brown marble angel statues in all four corners.

Mr. Folley, for obvious reasons, was not in court.

Francine walked feebly up to the witness stand and sat down. The few steps made her exhausted and she nearly fainted onto the chair.

The judge whispered something to her, and she nodded in reply.

The questioning began, and she answered them all surely.

The large chested lawyer held up a picture.

House narrowed his eyes, trying to see through the back of it using the bright lights of the courtroom.

"Do you know this man?" the lawyer asked.

Francine nodded slowly.

"Who is it?"

"My father."

The lawyer showed the picture to the jury, and they all nodded.

"What-"

Before she could even start her question, Francine fell to the floor with a seizure.

House stood and ran as though he didn't have a limp to the girl, using his cane as a leg in place of the injured one.

"Call an ambulance!" he shouted.

The world seemed to be in slow motion as the court worked itself into a frenzy. The only thing House could see clearly was the terrified look on Mrs. Folley's face.

--

When Francine was safely in the ambulance and it drove out of sight, House turned to the cause of the panic.

The whole courtroom stood in the parking lot, deaf to the orders and complaints of the judge.

The large-chested attorney was staring absentmindedly in the direction of the EMT.

"I hope you're happy," he said lowly. He walked to his car, leaving the lawyer to stand alone.

"I'm quitting," she yelled to him.

House turned. "What?"

"I can't do this to a little girl. I'm quitting this case." She walked away, her heels clicking on the cement. She got into her shiny BMW and drove away as House stood at the door of his car.

He felt a little empty inside.

She was _really _hot.


End file.
